


I met a guy in this alley and he was wearing your smile

by orphan_account



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Changelings, Gore, M/M, Shapeshifting, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-03 08:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sid knew exactly where his night was going. Doesn't mean he had to be happy about it.A small snapshot of what it's like to have the worst job in the world.





	I met a guy in this alley and he was wearing your smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silkymittsmcgee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkymittsmcgee/gifts).

Sid couldn’t help but whimper as fangs pierced his neck. It was natural instinct to struggle, even if this was more or less what he had wanted, but the hand fisted tightly in Sid’s hair let him know that he wasn’t going anywhere. He tried to twist away from the wall, away from the condensation soaking through his thin dress, but all that achieved was to make the vamp growl and latch down harder.

The world began to swim around Sid, dark spots dancing in his eye. _This is it_, he thought. _I’m finally going to die and it’s because of a fucking vampire._

And then the vampire shuddered against him, teeth releasing Sid’s neck with a sickening rip. Blood welled from the gaping wound and Sid gurgled helplessly as it flooded his throat, choking him and filling his senses with salt and iron. He thudded to the ground as someone pulled the vamp off him, just conscious enough to register the impact as painful.

“Ugly fuck.” Geno sneered, kicking the vamp over onto its back. Its eyes were completely black with feeding frenzy, its lips pulled away to reveal a mouth full of jagged teeth and a thick red tongue that lolled out onto the damp concrete. Black blood oozed from where Geno had driven his stake, pooling around the body in a foul smelling puddle. It crept towards Sid, still slumped against the wall, and Geno hurriedly dragged Sid away from it.

He dumped his backpack down on the ground, pulled out a couple of glass vials and Sid up against his side. The first vial, Geno poured over the mess that used to be his neck, where it sizzled and gave off a strong smell of aniseed. Sid howled with pain, twisting in Geno’s grip.

“Not done yet, дорогой.” said Geno, his face grim.

The second vial went straight down Sid’s throat. For a minute it looked like nothing was going to happen but then Sid twisted again, and this time Geno let him go. He threw himself to his hands and knees and with a huge, violent heave he threw up all over the pavement. Blood and bile splashed against the concrete as Sid’s body desperately expelled what was trying to kill it.

“Where the fuck where you?” Sid snapped once the world had stopped spinning around him. He felt gingerly at the gash in his neck, already healing from Geno’s tonic but still oozing blood down the front of his dress. 

“Nice glamour,” was all Geno said, his grin . Sid kicked at him with one stilettoed foot, what Kris called his ‘fuck you’ shoes. Geno yelped. “Fuck, Sid. Jeez, thought I saw something on the roof is all.”

Sid stared at him with disbelief. “I nearly bled out. Tell me it was worth it.”

“Dunno. Didn’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there.”

That was the problem with their line of work. Nothing ever seemed to be what it was - a vampire looked like a perfectly ordinary person up until they tried to bite your face off. A poltergeist could be just a breath of wind one moment and a screaming, knife-throwing hurricane the next. Changes came without warning, relentless and exhausting, and most days it was all Sid and Geno could do to try and keep up and hope they staked the right monsters.

“That can be a problem for another night,” Sid said, already done with the whole business. To be fair, he had been done before they’d even left the apartment that evening, but the Unseelie Court didn’t take kindly to broken contracts.

“Can you make it to the car?” Geno asked, his voice gentle in a way that made Sid want to yell. He couldn’t be gentle here, not 

“Think so. Take these.” Sid thrust his shoes at Geno before pulling himself to his feet.

The ride home was quiet, the silence broken only by the patter of rain against the car. The damp road shone in the lamp light, . 

“Remind me why we do this.” Sid said. His head was still spinning, his neck still aching, and a throbbing pain was slowly creeping down all his limbs as his body began the process of shifting back into Sid. Some nights it just didn’t seem worth it, not for the pittance of a paycheck they got from the Court.

“Someone has to,” Geno shrugged. “Not everyone so down with murdering their own kind.”

They fell into silence again, and Sid watched the side of Geno’s face passing from light to dark to light as they sped down the deserted road. They had hated each other when the Court had first paired them together, forced to wade through the filth of the underworld with someone who didn’t seem to want to understand the other. It seemed like a cruel joke when Sid felt that first spark of attraction, but gradually, carefully, what started as a tense working relationship morphed into something more. Something gentle. 

Before that train of thought grew into anything more sentimental, Geno pulled into their space outside their apartment building. It wasn’t the nicest of places, but it was what they could afford, and for now they called it home.

Sid managed to limp his way across the lobby, but his legs gave up when they got to the stairs, leaving him little choice but to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being carried bridal style up to their third floor apartment. He let his eyes slide closed, relaxing in the safety of Geno’s arms, praying that they wouldn’t meet anyone on the way down. He could only imagine what someone might think, a six foot tall Russian carrying a blood drenched woman. But they made it to their door unscathed.

The apartment was dark and still, exactly as they had left it. The door closed behind them, and Sid let out a sigh of relief. They’d made it one more night, survived one more bitter scramble to survive. Geno started to carry him through to their bedroom, but Sid patted him on the shoulder, shook his head.

“No, I’m going to get blood on the sheets. Bathroom.”

“Not just leaving you in the shower, Sid.”

“I mean, you’re also pretty gross.”

Geno sighed, just wanting to sleep, but he obliged and carried Sid through to their tiny bathroom instead. The bath was only just long enough to accommodate Geno’s legs, and even then he had to scrunch them up until his knees were almost touching his chest. He helped Sid out of his dress and into the shower, stepped in with him. Carefully, he helped to clean the blood and grime off Sid’s borrowed skin.

Sid helped as best he could, but he just really liked being taken care of. Then Geno helped him out and into bed, where he was out like a light. Geno listened for a moment to Sid’s snores rising from the dark, impressed as always at Sid’s ability to go from awake to unconscious in under a second. 

***

In the end, it wasn’t the night terrors that woke Sid. They were old friends by now, the faces of the dead and dying his constant companions even though he’d long forgotten their names. Instead, he was woken by the itching sensation that told him his glamour was starting to shed. Sid lay there for a second, not wanting to open his eyes and face the world, but knowing that sooner or later he would have to move or risk completely ruining the sheets. It wasn’t until he ran a hand through his hair and it came away with scalp still attached, that he finally mustered enough willpower to drag himself once more to the bathroom. The small plastic travel clock on the window-ledge told him it was just gone eight A.M.

“Four fucking hours,” he muttered to himself. No wonder he felt like shit.

He stood under the shower for what felt like hours, shedding globs of flesh and fat and watching them melt away down the drain. The water stung as it hit his fresh skin, lighting up Sid’s nerves until he was just a fuzz of sensation, lost under a haze of not quite pain. He stood there until the water ran cold, jerking him out of his catatonia with a jolt. He hurriedly wiped off whatever remained of his shed and clambered stiffly out of the tub. Then, wrapping himself in a clean towel, he went to assess the damage in the mirror. 

The face that stared back was an odd one with its too smooth skin, and wide, red eyes set slightly too far apart. His neck was a state. Already a thick knot of white scar tissue had grown over the wound from last night, raised and gnarled like tree bark. Sid’s body was no stranger to scars, his skin a map of silvery slashes and crescent moons

After quickly drying off, he crept back into the bedroom. Quietly, not wanting to wake Geno, he pulled a pair of clean pyjamas from their dresser. The soft flannel was heaven against his sensitive skin, and smelled warm and clean and safe. He pressed the long sleeves of his shirt against his face, inhaled deeply.

He turned to find Geno watching him through half lidded eyes, a warm smile on his face. Sid sighed as he clambered back into bed, feeling clumsy and heavy under the weight of Geno’s gaze.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “Sun’s still up.”

“But I like your face,” said Geno, voice gravelly from sleep. “Want to look.”

“It’s not as pretty as the others.”

“Is best,” Geno said simply, reaching a hand out to brush against Sid’s cheek. Sid caught him, planted a kiss in the center of his palm.

“Sap,” he said, then pushed Geno gently backwards into the pillows. “Now shut up and let me sleep.”


End file.
